


Dizzyingly Digital

by Celyan, christinefromsherwood, soufflegirl91



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1, Alternate Universe: Canon Divergence, First Kiss, Fluff and Humour, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Oblivious Q, Post-Skyfall, Romance, poor Bond’s pride is hurt after the National Gallery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-11 23:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20554115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celyan/pseuds/Celyan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soufflegirl91/pseuds/soufflegirl91
Summary: Five times Bond pretends to know nothing about technology to Q + the one time he is exposed as the lying liar who lies (+ an epilogue (because we’re nice like that ;) )“Ah, Q, good. You’re here. I need your help,” Bond replied, pointing at his desktop background with a solemn expression. Q idly noted that it was the default MI6 logo. Trust Bond not to have any personal touches, even on his work computer. Bond turned from the screen to fix his icy blue gaze on Q.Q hated himself a little for what that gaze did to his insides. This was not the time for butterflies. Then Bond opened his mouth to speak:“Where is the internet?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Голова кругом от технологий](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830331) by [marias_the_cat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marias_the_cat/pseuds/marias_the_cat)

> Written for the MI6 Cafe Prompt Exchange prompt:  
Bond pretends not to understand how the basic computer functions work and he makes Q show him "where the internet is" over and over and over again
> 
> This is our first attempt at collaborating. We're pretty proud of this little fic, and we hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it.
> 
> This work is complete, chapters will be posted around twice a week over the next couple of weeks (we're aiming for Wednesday/Sunday)

The first time it happened, Bond had only been back at work for a few days. The events at his childhood home, and the death of the former M had resulted in Bond taking some “strongly suggested” leave in order to pull himself out of a bottle and bring his fitness levels back up to the point where he could actually pass the requalification tests. The new M was far less inclined to send unfit agents into the field than his predecessor. 

This enforced absence meant that, while Q had now had plenty of time to get to know the rest of the double-oh division, he still didn’t really have a read on Bond. A few brief meetings and some remote assistance didn’t really give you a proper feel for a person. At least, it didn’t give you a proper feel for their technological expertise. Or lack, thereof. 

It was a slow day in Q branch. The only agents out in the field were either on their way to or home from assignments, and Q’s staff had the relevant information gathering and decoding well in hand. Q would much rather be at home with his cats, but instead was stuck catching up on the paperwork he had conveniently forgotten to fill out last month. 

The phone rang.

“Q, there’s a situation in my office. Get up here, quick as you can. Might need your laptop.” That was 007, alright. Brusque to a fault. No ‘Hello, Q, long time no speak. How have you been?’ Just an order with no explanation, then the dial tone.

Slightly concerned about what sort of situation could possibly require his personal expertise in the double-oh offices, Q gathered his laptop and made his way swiftly to the lift. Coming around the corner at a jog into sight of Bond’s office, Q tried in vain to catch his breath.

“007,” he panted, “what appears to be the problem?”

“Ah, Q, good. You’re here. I need your help,” Bond replied, pointing at his desktop background with a solemn expression. Q idly noted that it was the default MI6 logo. Trust Bond not to have any personal touches, even on his work computer. Bond turned from the screen to fix his icy blue gaze on Q.

Q hated himself a little for what that gaze did to his insides. This was not the time for butterflies. Then Bond opened his mouth to speak:

“Where is the internet?”

“The internet?” Q replied, confusion lacing his voice.

“How do I find the internet?” Bond repeated, apparently deadly serious. 

If it were possible for a human face to do the equivalent of the blue screen of death, that would be the expression that crossed Q’s face. He gaped at Bond, speechless. 

“Come on, Q, you know. The blue thingy you click on to take you to the internet. It was here before,” Bond pointed at the taskbar, “but now it’s gone. What did you do to the internet while I was away?” 

“The blue thingy… Bond. Do you mean  _ Internet Explorer? _ Good grief, who still uses Internet Explorer?” It was not possible for Q’s eyebrows to move any higher on his forehead, but they made a valiant effort.

“Maybe? The blue symbol. Looked like an e. Is that Internet Explorer? I just thought the internet was the internet.” Bond, for his part, looked as calm and collected, if slightly perplexed, as he had when Q arrived. Q had a sinking feeling that Bond’s confusion was aimed more at Q’s reaction than at his computer.

“Yes, that’s Internet Explorer. Good Lord, I had no idea anyone here was actually using that piece of crap excuse for a browser. All the defaults have been moved over to Chrome.” Bond looked even more confused. 

“Chrome? Why would the computers need chrome plating?”

Q was going to have an aneurysm, he could feel it. He was going to have an aneurysm in the middle of bloody 007’s office because the dinosaur was still looking for a browser best left in 2005. 

Q did not sign up for this. 

“Chrome is the name of the browser, Bond. The… thing you click on to take you to the internet,” Q forced the words out, gritting his teeth.

“Oh. OK, then. How do I find that?” 

Q just barely resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall.

“It’s the symbol on the left, next to the start menu. The multicoloured circle.” Q pointed at the symbol. Bond’s confusion cleared.

“Well why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” he replied. This time Q just barely resisted the urge to punch him.

“Now, what was this situation you mentioned?” asked Q, trying to steer Bond back on track. “Does M need to be informed?”

“What?” Bond replied, the confusion returning and then clearing again almost instantaneously, “Oh, no security threats. I just needed you to tell me where the internet was.” 

Q actually did bang his head against the wall this time, swearing under his breath about old fossils who needed basic IT skills classes. He turned on his heel and headed back towards the lifts. 

“Oh, 007?” he called over his shoulder, “the next time you have a question about how to use a work computer, call the IT service desk like everyone else does. Q branch is not your personal tech support!” 


	2. Chapter 2

The second time happened not too long after what Q privately liked to refer to as ‘that time 007 lost the internet as well as his marbles’. He’d thought about it probably a lot longer than it warranted, though, and had come to the conclusion that Bond had just been through a lot lately and perhaps his mind had simply gone blank for a moment. 

He hoped so, anyway, because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. (He’d been there already, crushing on a technologically illiterate guy, and it was an experience Q certainly did not care to repeat.) 

Either way, it was a slow evening with Bond as the only agent actively needing assistance, so Q had given most of his staff permission to leave early. He’d taken over the comms as was his wont, and he wasn’t expecting any difficulties to arise. Really, the mission was a simple intel gathering, something Bond had done countless times before. The main reason Q had not relinquished the comms to R was that it was only the second mission after Bond’s return and he needed to build trust and rapport between himself and 007 for them to be able to work together as efficiently as possible. 

That, and he didn’t want anyone else to be Bond’s handler. (Q tried not to examine his reasons for _ that _ any more than strictly necessary.) 

Right now Bond was inconspicuously loitering near the residence of his target, Thomas Hibbert, waiting for the man to vacate the premises for the evening – and by loitering Q meant staying away and out of sight; after all, Bond was still a highly trained spy. According to the reservations to the theatre and restaurant which Q had hacked easier than breathing, Hibbert had planned a nice long evening out, which should give them several hours to complete the mission. 

All in all, Q was feeling perfectly positive about the whole thing. 

(He really ought to have remembered that with 007, nothing is quite as simple as it seems. But hindsight is truly a gift that comes with experience.) 

“Q?” Bond said after a few moments, breaking Q from his reverie.

“Yes, 007?”

“Hibbert’s leaving.”

“I see it. Let’s give it a few minutes and then you can proceed.” 

“Understood.” 

Q kept his eye on the monitors and watched as Mr Hibbert made his way out of the front door and towards his gleaming purple-blue Maserati GranTurismo. 

Q made a note of his fine suit (designer, if he wasn’t mistaken – Bond would probably be able to give him a name to go with the description, if he was so inclined) and his polished shoes, and then waited just long enough that he was sure that Mr Hibbert had truly left the premises before giving Bond the all clear signal. (Well, of course there was that one window on his screen that was keeping tabs on Mr Hibbert’s vehicle through traffic cameras.) 

Q watched as Bond stealthily made his way to the house and dealt with the lock – naturally, Q helped by taking care of the alarm system and the cameras – and then guided him to the study, where Mr Hibbert’s computer was. 

”All right, then,” he said, ”now turn on the computer and take out the USB drive I gave you.” 

”The Hello Kitty, you mean?” Bond asked, and Q could hear the amusement in his voice. 

”Yes, the Hello Kitty,” Q confirmed. 

Had anyone asked, he would have said that it suited Bond’s alias, to carry a stuffed Hello Kitty keyring containing a Q branch-made USB drive hidden beneath; clearly, it was a present from Richard Sterling’s new Japanese girlfriend Akane, given to him after a rather memorable date at the carnival and meant to double as an item of both sentimental and practical value. 

Okay, he may have thought about this particular cover of Bond’s in more depth than perhaps he should have, so sue him. 

“So Q,” Bond said, calm as you please, right when Q was busy taking a sip of his tea. “How does one get the USB out of the Kitty?” 

Q swallowed his mouthful of tea hastily. “You just twist and pull the head off.” 

“Pull off the head? Christ, Q, isn’t that a bit too barbaric?” 

“Barbaric? 007, what _ are _ you on about? Just twist and pull off the head, it’s hardly rocket science. I showed it to you when you were in Q branch this morning, surely you remember that?” 

“Fine, fine, let’s all be savages then…” 

Q had to pause simply to marvel at the balderdash he was hearing, and from Bond of all people! Surely he must have been pulling his leg? 

“Are you quite done?” he asked after Bond had finished his tirade. 

“Yes, I beheaded the Kitty, as per your instructions,” Bond replied. “Now what do I do?”

“Just plug it in,” Q said, “we expect that Mr Hibbert has his computer password protected, but the drive will take care of that for you. All you have to do is copy the files onto the hard drive.” 

“Yes, but where do I plug it in?” Bond asked, sounding politely confused. 

“Where do you plug- Bond, stop messing around and focus on the mission,” Q hissed. 

“I am focusing on the mission. Would you please just tell me where to stick this thing?”

“Wait, you’re actually serious?” Q said, his voice (quite without his permission, he might add) climbing to a higher register by the end of the sentence. “Surely, you’ve used USB drives before?!” 

“Of course I have used them before,” Bond said, sounding a little miffed. “Just not on a computer like this.” 

Q blinked. “That’s… just a normal Mac that he has, not even the latest model.” 

“What is a Mac?”

“It’s an Apple product.”

“And what exactly do apples have to do with computers?” 

“Apple Inc. is a company that designs electronics, including computers,” Q heard himself say, feeling faint and like the reality had just somehow shifted around him. Was he really explaining Apple to Bond? 

“I see. Why didn’t you just say so?” 

“007! Focus, please. You need to locate the USB port. That’s where the drive goes.” 

“I can’t see it,” Bond said. “Are you quite sure it’s there?” 

“Of course I’m sure!” Q just barely managed not to snap, a feat he achieved solely by biting at the inside of his cheek and imagining Sekhmet, his majestic Russian blue directing her most unimpressed gaze at Bond. 

Bond, however, did not sound convinced; and thus commenced the world's longest and most aggravating round of back and forth, wherein Q tried his best to walk Bond through the wonder that was Mac and find the hiding place of its USB port, and Bond seemed to be perfectly content to listen to him while offering his own quips and suggestions in return. 

To say that Q was exhausted after the port had finally been located and the drive plugged in would, in all honesty, probably be an overstatement, but he _ did _ now have a newfound respect for the people working at the IT service desk. 

“Well, Q, I believe your Kitty has done its job,” Bond broke the silence after a while.

“You’re in, then?”

“I’m in.”

“Good. Now, you need to go to the files to copy them.” 

“And where do I find these files?” 

Q took a deep breath. And another. Opened his mouth and closed it. He glanced wistfully at his tea mug, which held barely any liquid anymore (and what little it did hold was probably cold, too, after all the time it had taken for them to get even this far in a mission that was supposed to have been an easy one), and tried to wish for it to miraculously fill with strong, hot Earl Grey. Q _ really _ regretted having allowed his branch to practically empty out for the evening. He prayed for patience from above — perhaps from the previous M, if she was so inclined; she had, after all, spent many years dealing with Bond, had she not? — and peeked at the CCTV feeds to assure himself that Mr Hibbert was still safely at the theatre with his date and that they had time for Bond’s absurdity. 

Finally, regretfully, Q turned his attention back to the waiting 007. 


	3. Chapter 3

_ Q, I need your help. 007 _

Q stared at the words on his screen with a mixture of uncertainty and dread.

Never before had he heard one of his double-ohs use the words  _ need _ and  _ help _ in the same sentence. Like today when 003 had broken her arm in three places and still insisted she was able to drive her motorbike and complete the mission no problem, and what are you talking about, Q, why should I stay in the safe house and wait for Jeremy, I need to get working on my tan before the plane takes me back to the city of drizzling rain and smog!

That was not to say that all the double-ohs were morons with the judgement and self-preservation skills of an enraged kangaroo _ . _ But whenever they called for more information, or to signal for an extraction they always used predetermined codes, or oblique sentences. So for Bond to text Q and actually ask for his help outright while he was at home sick with a bad case of the flu? Either something had gone spectacularly wrong and Bond was dying, or he needed help setting up his WiFi.

On second thought: no. If Bond was calling him because he had apparently decided that Q was his own personal tech support, it wouldn’t be because he needed him to set up his WiFi. Most probably, Bond had no idea what WiFi was, if he even knew it existed.

It was, frankly, mind-boggling to Q, how a man such as Bond could exist in their field of work without the slightest bit of working knowledge of the technology he was supposed to use.

After Q had got over the despair and horror that filled him whenever he saw the image of the Hello Kitty cat, he had seriously considered whether he shouldn’t make a report to somebody about Bond’s gross ineptitude. The Hibbert Affair was a milk-run, but if Bond took an hour to plug in a USB drive with the clock ticking in a proper villain’s lair, it could very well cost him his life, and Q did not want that on his conscience!

In the end, he had decided to write up a couple of easy step-by-step manuals for the simpler things and pack them discreetly with Bond’s next mission brief folder along with the newer edition of  _ Computers for Dummies _ . Bond was by all accounts an excellent operative and there was no need to embarrass him, or to bring the higher-ups into it just yet.

But then there was no “next mission brief folder” because Bond had caught the flu, and, allegedly, had trouble making the journey from his bed to the bathroom, much less attempting to chase a rogue operative through a crowded bazaar.

Which brought Q back to the problem at hand: was Bond dying, incapable of calling Medical, having typed out the simple message to his last contact, or was he simply an incredibly incompetent, absurdly handsome idiot who couldn’t work the remote control for his flat screen, because he forgot to put the batteries in?

The cursor in the reply window was blinking steadily and annoyingly at Q. Decisions, decisions…

_ Sitrep? _ He finally typed out and hit send, even as he was putting on his jacket. It was past the time he was supposed to be heading home anyway; it wouldn’t hurt to stop by Bond’s place in case the situation was truly serious. It would be the perfect opportunity to leave Bond some much needed reading material. 

He opened his desk drawer and slipped the first couple of papers he had managed to type up in the lull in between missions into his briefcase. 

By the time Q got off at London Bridge he still hadn’t received a reply from Bond. 

His fingers were itching to reach into his pocket and write several follow-up texts, or hit the speed dial for Marian from Medical. He stopped himself and merely sped up his walk into a light jog. 

Texting again when Bond had simply forgotten to check his mobile would only make Q seem like some sort of a clingy, hysterical boyfriend, and he seriously doubted Bond was capable of accepting a call on his new smart phone. 

He had very good reasons for his doubts. Just the other week he had spent a good half of his lunch break in the canteen not eating, but incredulously watching the man jab at his touch screen, first trying to hit the green phone symbol, then the words  _ M calling _ while the more annoying of the default ringtones blared for all ofMI6 to hear and throw disapproving glances at their table. Then Bond managed to somehow reject the call, after which he had thrown the mobile on the table in disgust saying how stupid the smart phones were and how he had trouble reading all the small letters. 

As Q rang the bell next to the nametag for Mr. Jack S. Browne, he suddenly realised how unlikely it was for Bond not to be able to read the font on his screen when he had no trouble getting excellent marksmanship scores, or reading 003’s report over Q’s shoulder that one time. 

“Q?” the raspier than usual voice from the doorbell speaker interrupted Q’s train of thought.

“Not quite near death’s door just yet, then,” Q observed before he could stop himself.

Bond’s answering laughter and coughing fit was interrupted by the door buzzer; Q pushed his way in, wondering what fresh, new hell Bond had prepared for him.

The Bond who greeted Q at the door was a far cry from his usual well-groomed, agent-alert self; he hadn’t shaved since Monday and was slouched against a bookcase in a dark blue bathrobe. His face bore the marks of a recent illness, but the glint in his eyes showed that he was well on his way to full recovery.

“Bad day, Quartermaster?” Bond asked, after he finished piercing Q with those blue eyes of his. “Tess give you a hard time?” 

“Well, yes, she was being rather impossible about-” Q began to say before he stopped himself. “Hang on! How would you know about the mission in Marrakech?!”

There was no way Bond could know about the Marrakech disaster! No way in hell! He didn’t get the mission brief, so he didn’t have the access codes for the reports. Unless Bond had a mole in Q’s branch, or had miraculously gained god-tier hacking skills, he couldn’t have known about Tess’s broken arm, or Jeremy totaling his KTM on that fruit stand-

“Your sweater is the wrong way around,” Bond’s amused voice put an end to Q’s suspicions. 

Q looked down, and closed his eyes and fought a blush when he saw that Bond was right. 

He had put his jumper back on when he’d got out of mission control – someone should really do something about the AC there – and then he had walked around with it like an absolute fool for the rest of the day. Good grief, he had taken a video conference call with the New Zealand branch heads like that!

His rejoinder of “Well, your- your- your bathrobe isn’t tied properly!” truly deserved the amused snort it got. Q was glad that Bond made no mention of how his eyes had no business straying towards the low-slung bathrobe tie, before he spluttered out:

“You said you needed help?”

Oh, he might have made no mention of it, but he was thinking about it, Q was sure! There was that quirk of his lips, and that crinkle by his eyes, and while Q could not very well attribute any movement to Bond’s ears, large though they were, he could have sworn there was something to their set that also spoke to Bond’s incredible amusement at Q’s expense. Which was not fair at all because if anyone should be embarrassed in this situation it was Bond who had called him begging for help because he had forgotten how to send an email or some such nonsense!

“It’s my microwave,” Bond said, once again stopping Q’s internal monologue.

“Your... microwave?” Q repeated faintly. Bond wasn’t serious, he couldn’t be! This was in no way work related, and Bond  _ wouldn’t _ call him over because he couldn’t figure out how to warm up his take-out leftovers! 

“It won’t open,” Bond continued, an expression of honest frustration crossing his face.

“You said-,” Q began again, then stopped and let out a long calming breath before continuing haltingly: “Your text- You said you needed my help- You need my help with opening your microwave?”

“Yes.”

“How-  _ How _ \- How-?!” 

Bond was watching him with furrowed eyebrows and his head tilted to one side. But Q was busy suppressing the twitching in his fingers which longed to close about Bond’s throat, and deciding whether to scream  _ I am your bloody  _ Quartermaster _ , you absolute wanker!  _ or  _ I will murder you, Bond! _ to give much notice to Bond’s facial expressions.

“I will bloody quarter you, Bond!” came out of his mouth in a strangled yell. He shook it off and continued yelling: “I’m your Quartermaster, not a maid to service your every need, and this is not in any way work-related, you-”

“It is work-related,” Bond interrupted him before he got out a very satisfying insult he had been saving up since the time Bond had called him over because his internet had disappeared.

“Oh, is it?!” Q crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes into slits. “Pray then, enlighten me, agent! How is you being unable to warm up your soup in any way related to-”

“I shut my work tablet in there,” Bond jumped in again, and he really had to stop doing that!

Q stopped in his tracks and gaped at the man, blinking to make sure he wasn’t asleep and dreaming.

“You did what?!”

“The cough syrup Marian gave me made me drowsy,” Bond continued in his explanation. “When I woke up this afternoon, I found my tablet in the microwave.”

That sounded… almost reasonable. 

“It seems that the microwave computer is broken, because the door won’t open, and the display reads  _ CHOOSE DEFROST MODE. _ ”

“Don’t!” Q yelped out before he could stop himself. The idea of his precious tech spinning its way to a quick death by micro-waves made him panic, even though it was apparent that Bond’s casual slouch against the bookcase was at least in part out of necessity and the man was in no condition to suddenly sprint to his kitchen to murder Q’s tablet. 

He cleared his throat. 

“That is… Don’t turn it on, Bond,” he added in a more reasonable tone. 

“I wasn’t planning to, Q,” Bond retorted, with a pained grimace and a touch of offended pride in his voice. He had bumped his head against a bookshelf at Q’s shout.

“Well, you did put it in there,” Q felt compelled to mention.  _ And I wouldn’t put it past you _ ,  _ you complete luddite _ , he didn’t finish saying because Bond’s face took on a defensive, injured expression.

“Which reminds me,” he hurried to add as he scrambled to open his briefcase. “I’ve brought you something.”

“You’ve... brought me something.” Bond’s words came out a bit slow, slurred and surprised; Q gave him a careful look. 

The cough syrup from Marian seemed to be taking effect again. Q had no idea what she put in the concoction to knock out a double-oh whose file claimed that he had built up immunity to a vast variety of medication, but the usual warning label of  _ do not operate heavy machinery _ seemed to be an understatement here.

“I have,” he affirmed, and then took a few steps forward as Bond swayed on his feet unsteadily. He took him by the elbow and pushed him gently in the direction of the sofa. “It’s something for you to read when you’re feeling better, agent. So that you don’t die on me in the field when you forget how to set your phone on silent during a stakeout.” 

“I know how to do  _ that _ ,” Bond protested as he allowed himself to be led towards the sofa. 

“I’m sure you do,” Q murmured absentmindedly as he maneuvered Bond into his seat. He tried not to think too hard on just how bizarre it was that Bond was simply letting his puny Quartermaster lead him around his own flat. 

“Just sit down here for a while, yeah?” he babbled, suddenly panicked at the thought of Bond’s reaction to Q treating him like an invalid when he regained his faculties. “I’ll undertake the extraction of Q branch tech from the enemy microwave on my own.” 

Q dropped the printed manuals on Bond’s coffee table haphazardly—the only really important thing was that Bond began reading  _ Swiping Left and Right: How to Work a Touch Screen _ first, and Q had made sure to put it on the top of the pile—and rushed off into the kitchen. 

Once there, he stopped in his tracks and stared at the monstrosity that was Bond’s microwave oven. He no longer wondered at Bond’s inability to get it to open its door and release the tablet; he was the Quartermaster of MI6 and he had never seen anything like that before.

In Q’s opinion, no keyboard that wasn’t required to hold the full alphabet for novel-writing purposes should be allowed to have that many buttons. The large blue-tinted screen was, indeed, flashing threateningly with the words !!CHOOSE A DEFROST MODE!!, and nothing happened when Q jabbed at the button that microwave conventions dictated should open the oven door. 

Then Q noticed a strange red symbol in the top left corner. It looked like a key standing next to a cocktail glass. He rolled his eyes. 

Trust the old guard at Q branch to overdesign everything! Q remembered hearing a couple of the guys in tech labs joke about building a Trevelyan-proof microwave with a Drunk-Lock Function after 006 had set fire to yet another of his MI6 issued flats. And now Bond’s flat was actually in danger of blowing up because of this supposed safety mechanism.

Shaking his head, Q set about searching for the plug; there was no point in trying to figure out the unlocking code and he refused to even contemplate sitting down to hack the OS of  _ a microwave oven _ . With one satisfying tug on the cable, the screen went black and the push button finally released Q’s captive tech. 

As Q cradled the unharmed tablet in his arms to the sound of Bond’s loud snores from the sofa, he thought that it was no wonder the agent had texted him begging for help with R’s demon microwave. Bond was certainly not the brightest bulb in the box when it came to technology, and this would have given a pause even to a regular human being who didn’t struggle when plugging in a USB drive and didn’t need to make comparisons with tongues and French kissing to understand how the two bits of plastic needed to be positioned for a successful connection.

“You’re lucky you’re so pretty, 007,” Q told the prone, no longer snoring form of James Bond on the sofa as he slipped out of his front door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 4 coming up on Sunday! :) **
> 
> _Let us know what you think, guys! All your hopes and dreams and wishes for this masterful masterpiece of ours :D And it's not just about stroking our egos, really! (Though mine purrs happily with every new comment :) ) We simply like to know what you think.___\- ch.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been weeks, but Q was still trying to mentally get over the events of that one time Bond got the flu and nearly blew himself up. Did the double-ohs really have so much of a death wish that they thought death by exploding microwave was a good way to go? Q really ought to mention this to psych, but that would mean actually  _ speaking _ to psych, and Q did his level best to avoid them at all costs. They already thought he was a sociopath who liked computers better than people. They would probably think Q’s concern was aimed more at the microwave and tablet than at Bond. Which really wasn’t true. This time. 

In the time that had passed since the unfortunate microwave incident, Bond had been back on requalification training  _ again _ . Losing so much of your body weight in a short period of time from vomiting and lack of appetite had a negative effect on one’s stamina, apparently. Who knew? Bond certainly hadn’t seemed to, if his black mood had been anything to go by. Still, at least with him safely ensconced in the gym and medical, it kept him far, far away from any potential technological mishaps. Q could only hope that Bond was using the time wisely to read up on all of Q’s handy guides. That is, if Bond hadn’t just thrown them in the recycling the moment he woke up. 

Bond being off active duty had, however, given Q the opportunity to discreetly raise his concerns about the agent’s apparent ineptitude at working with simple, everyday tech. Not knowing how to hack into a computer, or remotely access camera feeds, Q could accept. That is what Q branch was for. Not being able to answer a call on his phone or plug in a USB drive, or  _ find the bloody internet _ , Q could not. This wasn’t just an issue that affected Bond’s work, this was a genuine concern about his ability to survive in the 21st century. Even Q’s Grandma could use the internet – well, she would be able to if his Grandma was still alive, but that was beside the point. He knew plenty of people with internet-savvy grandparents. 

Oh. Maybe Bond was showing signs of early-onset dementia. That was a thing, right? Q knew that was a thing. He wasn’t a big Terry Pratchett fan for nothing. What if this was the first sign of something more severe? What if, one of these days, Bond would come into Q branch and he wouldn’t remember who Q  _ was _ ? Q wasn’t sure he could cope with a lack of recognition in those definitely-not-attractive-and-butterfly-inducing blue eyes. Q had found himself becoming used to, and even returning (despite himself) the warm smiles that Bond seemed to throw his way at some point every time they saw each other in person. Q caught himself before he could get too lost down the spiral of  _ what if Bond has dementia and won’t remember him _ . This was far too early to be worrying about things like that. Bond was just a dinosaur with no interest in or respect for modern technology. He probably missed the days of cassette players and analogue radio. 

Now, where was he? Ah, yes. Bond was off sick, so Q had ever so subtly not accosted Bill Tanner in the lift on the way to a meeting with M. Q had calmly expressed his concern about how Bond didn’t seem to know the simplest things, and did anyone these days really not know how to access their internet browser, and weren’t USB sticks commonplace on missions; really, Bill, he put his tablet in the  _ microwave _ , stop laughing, this is serious. 

Bill, once he had stopped laughing, had merely shrugged and told Q that Bond had passed all of the IT aptitude tests with flying colours, and no other members of staff had ever expressed any concerns about his use of technology on missions. Maybe Q’s standards were just too high. Just because he was a technological genius, that didn’t mean he could expect the same from the field agents. 

Silently seething, Q had barely managed to restrain himself from commenting that most of the old guard had been even less tech-savvy than Bond and that he would be surprised if they could use a toaster. Then he remembered where Bond’s evil microwave had come from in the first place, and nearly bit his tongue off. They  _ had _ understood technology, they just, apparently, had not understood that less is sometimes more when it comes to equipping the double-oh division. After all, Bond had no trouble using exploding pens or any of the previous Q’s ridiculous gadgets. It was the mundane things that he appeared not to be able to use. 

Resigning himself to a future that contained more educating-007-in-21st-century-ways, Q turned his efforts into planning the simplest possible technology for future missions. Along with the instruction manuals he had previously decided to slip in with briefing packets, Q had produced a universal bypass to any keycard-operated door that now held a handy sticker reading “press this against the card reader to open the door” along with another clever door-opening device – a foolproof safe cracker**. **Even Bond would be able to use these gadgets, whether or not Q’s soul was dying slightly just by creating them. 

He really should do something about this crush of his. If it were any of the other double-ohs, Q would have happily enrolled them in OAP computer classes during their downtime, or sent them the entire  _ Which? Guide  _ collection. Surely with a bit of help from  _ The Which? Guide to Using Windows 8 _ and  _ Smartphones Made Easy _ , possibly even  _ Make the Most of Your Tablet _ , Q could have easily washed his hands of his agent’s ineptitude. Instead, Q had found himself  _ typing the bloody things up himself _ and  _ going around to his agent’s flat to help him out _ because he was a smitten idiot, that’s why. 

He needed to get Bond out of his head, and fast. It wouldn’t do for him to fall totally head over heels for someone who thought  _ a memory stick was something you used to keep an electronic diary _ . 

Of course he wasn’t already gone on Bond, don’t be silly. Ok, so he had printed a few handy guides and helped the agent out a few times, but this guide to internet shopping he was writing really would be helpful to… shit. 

Too late.

Q was in love with Bond. He was in love with one of his agents, and of course he had picked the agent that  _ could not operate a microwave _ . He was doomed. 

Realising with a jolt that he had been working overtime because of his personal project for Bond,  _ again _ , Q reluctantly pulled himself away from  _ The Ancient Field Agent’s Guide to Ordering from Amazon _ and packed up to go home. He had a Sainsbury’s lasagna and the latest episode of Doctor Who waiting for him at home, and no, Moneypenny, he was  _ not _ pathetic, thank you very much. 

One saving grace of the hours Q kept was that he very rarely had to fight the tube during rush hour on his way home. Usually, by the time he made it to the station, the mass exodus had already happened, and he could quietly get the Jubilee line without incident. 

Turning the corner towards his flat on the way out of Bermondsey station, Q stumbled to a halt. There, leaning casually against the wall next to Q’s front door, was James Bond. James Bond, holding a Tesco carrier bag, of all things. Q had been sure that Bond, if he didn’t have some sort of posh wanker shopping service, would shop in Waitrose or, at a push, Sainsbury’s. Apparently, Q had not given Bond enough credit, as it seemed the agent had braved Tesco along with the rest of the plebs. 

Silently resigning himself to yet another evening of explaining basic tech functions to 007, Q approached. He just hoped Bond hadn’t caught his awkward stumble. 

“Evening, Q.” Bond called out as Q reached the door. “I thought I would bring you dinner, as penance for the microwave incident.” Q flinched at the reminder of how he had almost lost his poor tech (and his poor agent) to a fiery death by microwave. 

“Bond,” he greeted, warily, “don’t tell me, you managed to lock yourself out of your phone, and you need my help to get back in.” Bond just grinned at him. 

Q unlocked the door using his key and the cleverly hidden fingerprint reader in the door handle, then walked inside, making sure to leave the door open enough for Bond to enter behind him. The agent had somehow managed to find out where Q lived, the least he could do was help him out. Actually, come to think of it, how  _ had _ Bond found out where Q lived?

“How did you find out where I live?” he asked. 

Bond shrugged.

“I poked around a bit,” he replied, noncommittal, “it wasn’t that hard.”

“Wasn’t that hard? Bond, my address is on an encrypted server.” Q knew it was encrypted, he had done the encryption himself. Even HR didn’t know where Q lived. Hacking  _ that _ was certainly beyond Bond’s demonstrated capabilities. “The only people who know where I live are M, Tanner and Moneypenny. Who told you?”

Bond smiled, innocently. 

“Come on, Q, you know I never reveal my sources.” 

Grumbling, Q led Bond through the next door (biometric eye scanner hidden in the peephole, and weight sensor under the doormat) and into his flat. Bond glanced about, casually, hardly seeming to mind that Q’s flat must have looked practically space-age to Bond’s mind. Q may have hacked his TV and gaming systems into one seamless set up. He was quite proud of it, really. 

“So, what is it?” Q asked, removing his shoes. Bond followed suit. Q tried not to let the idea of Bond barefoot in his flat derail him from his annoyance at being used as tech support  _ again.  _ “Locked yourself out? Managed to put the phone on vibrate and can’t take it off?” 

“Actually, no,” Bond replied, “I really did feel bad about the other week. Whatever they put in that cough syrup is lethal. I wanted to apologize, and to cook dinner for you as a thank you for keeping me from blowing myself up. I hope you like stir fry.” Bond gestured at the carrier bag. 

Damn him with his pretty eyes, and his silly big ears, and his endearing grin. How was Q supposed to  _ not _ forgive him, in the face of all that? He sighed.

“Well, as long as you don’t do it again. How are you getting on with the reading material I gave you?”

Bond smiled, enigmatically.

“It’s very… enlightening.” There was something in Bond’s smile that Q couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Where is the kitchen?”

“Hmm?” Q shook himself, “Oh, yes, of course. This way, 007.”

“I wasn’t aware that dinner was a mission, Quartermaster,” chuckled Bond, following behind him into Q’s spacious kitchen. 

Unlike the rest of his flat, Q’s kitchen did not contain much in the way of “futuristic” appliances. For cooking, he had a built in oven, ceramic hob and a normal microwave  _ without a drunk-lock function, 007 _ . His fridge freezer didn’t even have a temperature gauge or ice dispenser. Surely there was nothing that Bond would struggle with, here. 

“Pans are there,” he said, pointing at the rack of saucepans in the corner, “utensils are in here,” he pulled out a drawer, “chopping board is in the cupboard left of the oven. Is there anything else you’ll need?” 

“That all seems to be in order, thanks. If you wouldn’t mind just putting this in the fridge to chill.” Bond handed Q a bottle of good-but-surprisingly-not-expensive white wine, which he put in the fridge as requested. 

"Oh, before I forget," Q turned back to Bond just as the agent had managed to find Q's sharpest knife, "Sekhmet and Uzume are probably asleep on my bed at the moment. If either of them surfaces, please don't attack my cats. I would be very unimpressed."

"Noted," Bond replied. "No retaliating to sneak attacks by cats."

Q smiled, despite himself.

“Look, Bond, I hate to be rude, but would you mind if I took a shower while you cook? I wasn’t expecting guests, and I really have been at work for  _ far _ too many hours today."

“Go ahead, Q. I’m sure I’ll manage to find my way around your kitchen just fine. Dinner will take about 30 minutes if that’s enough time for you?” 

Q let out a sigh of relief. While he could just about cope with unexpected double-oh agents turning up on his doorstep, he wasn’t sure he could have managed dinner with the object of his unplanned affections knowing that he really was getting a bit whiffy. 

"Just bear with me for a few minutes, and I'm all yours." The words had left his mouth on autopilot, without him realising how they could be misconstrued. At Bond's raised eyebrow, Q flushed.

"I can't wait," Bond replied, flirtatiously. Q could feel his cheeks burning and valiantly managed not to choke on his tongue. 

"Yes, well…" Q trailed off, awkwardly. "I would say make yourself at home, but I'd really rather you didn't try and put any of my things in the microwave." With that, he turned on his heel, trying not to make it look like he was eager to escape the conversation before Bond could make it worse. 

Locking the bathroom door behind him, Q gratefully stripped out of his grimy work clothes and placed them in the laundry hamper. He had just turned the shower on to heat up when there was a knock at the bathroom door.

“Erm, Q…” called Bond from the hallway.

“Yes, Bond?”

“...I may be having a little bit of trouble with the hob.” This may have been the first time Bond had ever sounded at all embarrassed about not knowing something. 

Q let out a mournful groan, turned the shower back off, and wrapped himself in a towel. Just once, he would like to spend time with Bond without it turning into Luddites not-so-Anonymous. 

Opening the bathroom door, Q did not miss the casual head-to-toe glance Bond threw his way. Still, he brushed it off. For Bond, checking out semi-naked people must be a habit by now. He clearly didn’t mean anything by it. Why would he be interested in Q? There was no possible way that Q’s feelings were reciprocated. 

“Well?” he asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest self-consciously. “What is it?”

Bond looked sheepish. 

“I can’t seem to figure out how to turn on the hob.” He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, a nervous gesture that was very unlike him. 

Q sighed and stalked towards the kitchen, Bond hot on his heels. He idly noticed Sekhmet perched on the counter, tail swishing idly and looking generally unimpressed at the humans. Uzume was likely still in Q's bedroom, ever wary of strangers. When they got to the offending stovetop, he noted that it was indeed still turned off. 

“I did try pressing the power button…” Bond trailed off. He shrugged, sheepish again. “Mine just has dials, yours has fancy touch control.”

Ok, he may have had a point. Q remembered needing to read the manual himself to figure out how the bloody thing worked the first time. Why hadn’t Q thought of that  _ before _ getting naked? Bond wouldn’t have been able to work that out himself if he couldn’t work out where to plug a USB stick. 

“You need to press the power button and the button for the hob you want to use at the same time.” Q demonstrated this with the large burner on the left. “Then once both lights go red, you use the plus and minus buttons by that hob to control your temperature. The reader shows you what number the heat setting is on at the moment.” He pointed at the relevant buttons and the reader. “Don’t press and hold the power switch, or you’ll lock the controls, and that is a real arse to undo. When you’re done, just turn the hob down to zero and press the hob button again to turn it off.” Q did so. “It will stay red until it cools down completely. Got it?”

Bond nodded, serious as any mission briefing. Given Bond's recent history, Q decided it was better to be safe than sorry. He stepped away from the counter.

“Here, you try. I’ll stay until you’ve got the hang of it.” 

Mirroring Q's demonstration exactly, Bond reached out and pressed the two buttons Q had first shown him. When they lit up, he confidently pressed the plus button until it went up from zero to ten, stopping when it didn't go any higher. He then turned his beatific grin on Q.

“Thanks, Q. Sorry for disturbing you. Who knew hobs could be so complicated?" He shrugged awkwardly. 

“Well, we got there in the end, 007,” Q replied graciously, “I don’t think uncooked stir fry would have appealed to either of us. Do you remember how to turn it down and then off?”

Bond nodded. Q turned back towards the bathroom, giving Sekhmet a stroke on his way out. Her ear twitched in acknowledgement, but she didn't move her stare from Bond. Apparently, the unfamiliar human in her space was more interesting than scritches right now.

“Do try not to burn the place down while I’m in the shower, Bond.”

Once again locking the door behind him, Q groaned, leaning his head against the closed door.

“I am so fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Not yet, you aren't. But you soon will be, Q," said one of the co-creators in response to the last line after this chapter was finished. _
> 
> Why don't you have a guess as to which one of us it was in the comments below? (Who knows, there might be a fic in it for you if you get it right) :D 
> 
> And once you're down there, you might just as well tell us how you think we're doing with this fic, right?
> 
> Chapter 5 is coming on Wednesday! -ch.


	5. Chapter 5

It might have been five minutes, it might have been ten. Q didn’t know how long it had taken him to notice he had been staring at a computer screen that had gone into screensaver mode.

He looked around surreptitiously to see if anyone had noticed his inattention. No one outside the door to his office seemed to pay any attention to whether the boss was working, or whether he was pathetically daydreaming about the objectively unremarkable evening he had spent in the company of James Bond.

After all, when compared to Bond’s usual exploits, eating stir-fry on the couch while watching episodes of Doctor Who  _ was _ rather unremarkable. Even if it was followed by Q busting out his first aid kit because while Sekhmet had time to suss Bond out in the kitchen, Uzume had awoken from her deep slumber to find a stranger in the spot next to her Dad, who then had the audacity to try and scratch her between the ears!

Q moved his head forward into a better position for the retina scan and then stared at the open program on his unlocked screen. Bond’s newest evaluation results, which declared him fit for field work again, stared back at him.

After their evening together—Q refused to call it a date, because it wasn’t a date. It would be silly to call it a date; it was just a singular, never-to-be-repeated occurrence of Bond cooking him dinner, and asking after stories about his cats and helping mop up the wine Q had spilled on the couch because he was laughing so hard at Bond’s imitation of the royal family during the one function he had covered at Balmoral Castle (Bond’s Prince Philip voice was simply uncanny). 

After their evening together, Bond had thrown himself into his training and except for the time when he’d passed by Q’s office on the way to his marksmanship evaluation, Q hadn’t seen him at all. 

He had spent a long time agonizing over whether to send Bond the rest of the how-to pamphlets he had typed up for him. In the end, he had done it and regretted it instantly. 

Because the reasoning that had ultimately led him to clicking SEND (namely, that it would be a pity if the work Q had put into the manuals went to waste) somehow paled in comparison to the knowledge that advice on how to shop on Amazon, and how to search for and download audiobooks (so that Bond would have something to keep him company on his long flights besides a folder with his mission brief), were not exactly work-related. The fact that he had taken his time to create these at all was practically the equivalent of walking around with a giant sign that said: “I’m so gone on you! Look how stupid it’s made me!” 

Bond had responded unexpectedly, gratifyingly fast (Q knew it had been a good idea to highlight the section on how to work with an email client) with the words  _ THANK YOU, Q,  _ and that had been that.

Because Q refused to act like a crazy person and stalk Bond’s fitness progress, or follow him around on CCTV that one time he had left work early to go alone to a restaurant opening in Soho. Well, mostly. (The cab Bond had taken must have been driven by either a cheat, or an idiot to take such a circuitous route!)

And now Bond was ready to go into the field again, there was a mission in Belgium lined up for him, and as Q was staring at Bond’s scores and the mission details, he was once again reminded of just how impossible this whole thing with Bond was. 

Bond was a field agent, and Q his Quartermaster. Someone who was supposed to protect him, not ogle his butt in his suit trousers, or want to press kisses all along his jawline or admire how the blue of his eyes might contrast with the dark grey of Q’s blankets. Q was also someone who was supposed to be able to objectively weigh whether the importance of a mission warranted Bond’s life, and right now Q really wasn’t sure he was capable of being objective.

“Good morning, Quartermaster.” 

“Shit!” Q startled in his seat at the sudden sound. 

It was Bond, naturally. He was standing six feet away from Q, leaning against the doorframe in an unfairly attractive way, and Q hadn’t heard him come in at all. He really was back to form.

“Sorry, Bond,” he went on immediately, because the best way to deal with a blush was not to acknowledge it and power through. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“So I see,” Bond answered, and how dare Bond look at him like that with his eyes and his face and it wasn’t fair!

“If you came here for your equipment, I’m afraid it’s not-” Q began only to be interrupted by Bond shaking his head.

“I didn’t,” he said, and then he just stood there and looked at Q with this expression on his face and didn't say anything else and wh-

“I actually,” Bond began again, then stopped and seemed to be hesitating, and Q didn't know what to make of that! “I came to ask you something.”

Q suddenly realised he was standing directly in front of Bond. Somehow, sometime between noticing Bond and now, he had got to his feet and walked over to him. 

He could only imagine what the look on his face had been like! No wonder Bond was uncomfortable and hesitant.

He took a step back and put a semblance of a professional smile on his face. 

“Yes, 007,” Q said again in a very professional manner. “What did you want to ask?” 

Bond opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, then huffed out a laugh and shook his head. 

“It's the pamphlets you sent me,” he said with a wry smile and Q felt his heart sink faster than a lead balloon. 

Of course, it was a tech question. Something about the audiobooks, probably; Q knew he should have elaborated on the part with the file transfers. Or worse, maybe Bond had come to ask Q to back off with the manuals! 

“What about them?”

Bond rubbed at the back of his neck in a very uncharacteristic gesture, and looked around as though searching for words. 

“The latest ones, the ones you sent me last week,” he began haltingly. “I'd like a physical copy to have all of them in one folder.”

“I see,” Q said even though he saw exactly nothing, because that seemed to be the end of Bond’s speech. 

“And the printer in your office is…?” he continued, letting his sentence trail off to encourage Bond to elaborate.

“I… er, I'm not sure how to go about it,” Bond announced awkwardly. And Q stared at him in disbelief. 

That was just plain impossible! Q knew for a fact that Bond had worked a printer before! 

“Not sure how to go about it?” Q repeated incredulously; he couldn't seem to stop shaking his head. “Bond! You're joking!”

“I wanted to ask if you'd print them out for me,” Bond finished resolutely. 

And this time Q knew exactly what he was doing when he took three steps forward and jabbed a finger at Bond's obnoxiously firm pectorals. 

“I'm not your bloody secretary!” he hissed and not even the strange, almost soft light in Bond's eyes could calm the fury Q felt. 

“I know that, Q, I know,” Bond's voice rumbled apologetically, but neither the warmth of his hand on Q's shoulder, nor the heavenly scent of his cologne could distract Q from the fact that, despite the lovely apology dinner, to Bond he was still just tech support. 

“It's just,” Bond continued but Q was only half paying attention until the next sentence jolted him. “You've sent it to my phone, and I don't know how to print things from my phone.” 

“I've sent it to your  _ email _ !” Q yelped out before he could stop himself. Kareem, whose desk had the best view into Q's office, looked up from his experiment and behind his goggles his eyebrows went noticeably upwards.

Hastily, Q stepped away and headed towards his desk, Bond in his wake.

“You, James Bond, 007, are telling me-” Q began and had to fight to keep his voice level. “You are  _ actually _ telling me that you couldn’t open your email on your work computer and print out the bloody attachments?!” 

“Well, I thought they were only in my phone, and not on my computer, but now that you say it, it sounds easy.”

“Does it? I wonder why!” Q retorted as he glared into his retina scan, and then quickly clicked away from Bond's file. It was just possible that Bond hadn't noticed and wouldn't think that Q had been mooning over his blue blue eyes the whole morning. 

The next couple of commands Q typed out at high speed, but he refused to consider it as showing off for Bond. 

Was it nice to see the admiring look in Bond’s eyes when he watched Q’s fingers dance across the keyboard? Sure! Was it completely necessary for Q to send the pamphlets to the printer via the command window instead of just clicking his way through the file manager as usual? Not really. But banging on the keys did wonders to improve Q’s temper.

The old, barely used printer whirred to life and obligingly spat out six pages, covered front and back in size 16 text. Q grabbed the stack, banged it against the desk several times to straighten the edges and release another burst of anger.

“Here you are, 007,” he said brusquely as he shoved the papers into Bond’s hands. “Your flight to Brussels leaves on Wednesday, 10am. Q branch will have your kit ready by 7 on Tuesday at the latest.”

Q thought he had made the tone in his last sentence as final as possible, but Bond apparently didn’t think so because he made no move to leave.

“Who’s going to be on the comms?” he asked and Q had no idea where to look. Because when he had thrust the pamphlets at Bond, he had expected him to take them and walk away, but he hadn’t, so now they once again ended up standing much too close for a professional environment. 

The fact that Bond had spoken quietly and had somehow made his voice even deeper also didn’t help matters.

“I- well, er- It- It hasn’t been decided yet,” Q lied, because he had put down his own name the moment the mission file had slipped into his workflow. And now he seriously regretted it.

“Good,” Bond rumbled.

“Why is that good?” Again, Q’s voice stayed level and didn’t rise or hitch at all. It didn’t!

“I’d like to have you.” Q hadn’t realised he had been holding his breath until it escaped him in a surprised gasp. 

The icy blue irises in Bond’s eyes made a thin ring around the large dark pool of his pupils and Q felt his eyes widen because had Bond really just said-?! It sounded almost like-

“On the comms for the Belgium mission,” was naturally what Bond said next and Q refused to allow himself to feel disappointed that he hadn’t just been inappropriately propositioned in the workplace.

Because then Bond followed it up with: “I trust you, Q.” 

“You do?” Q didn’t try to fight the smile that tugged at the corners of his lips; Bond’s eyes seemed to be sparkling.

“I do,” Bond nodded and smiled softly as he gestured with the pamphlets: “And I really appreciate you going to all this trouble to help me out. Thank you, Q.”

“Ah, yes, well… No problem,” Q didn’t stutter. 

Just as he didn’t stay standing in the exact same position and didn’t watch Bond walk away until the sight of his light blue shirt stretching valiantly across his shoulders disappeared around a corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I see you over there, shaking your head at Bond... But never fear, all shall be revealed, all shall become clear :D Possibly even in the next chapter, which is coming on Sunday.
> 
> And yep, there's gonna be a mission. *grins in a very evil way* -ch


	6. Chapter 6

Q sighed and rubbed at his eyes with his free hand; the other held his trusted Scrabble mug that still contained the remnants of a heavenly Earl Grey Lemon tea blend he’d recently purchased. He did so enjoy sampling new teas, after all; at least those that he had already researched in advance and found adequate. 

It was Tuesday, 6.30 PM, and Bond’s kit was finished. Had been, in fact, since noon (because obviously lunchtime was for people who were not a certain double-oh’s Quartermaster, and he was not hungry besides, Moneypenny, so there really is no need for all that eye rolling and muttering and you _ know _ I can hear you, right?) on the off chance that Bond would come and request it early. 

He hadn’t, but that was beside the point. 

Q glanced at the clock on the wall and wondered if he could possibly justify leaving early – to himself, that was – to have a nice evening with his cats and some takeaway, hopefully soon after Bond’s visit. And he’d certainly need to have an early night after staying up way too late the previous night, first with 001’s mission running later than expected and then tossing and turning in bed while trying not to picture the many ways Bond’s mission could go wrong. 

Feeling the strain of the bright monitor light, Q closed his eyes and sighed in relief. It wasn’t a question of needing sleep – he was good to go for the rest of his shift at least – but there was nothing wrong with resting his eyes for a bit, was there? Just for a minute…

A sharp knock on the door brought Q back to himself. He cleared his throat, resolutely refused to remember the daydream he’d just had (wherein a man with blue eyes and blond hair and distinct ears – who in no shape or form reminded him of Bond – had saved him from a failed experiment deep in the labs and, after patting him down very thoroughly to make sure that he was fine, had pressed him against the wall and kissed him senseless) and called out a very professional-sounding, “Come in.” 

The door creaked open and revealed Bond behind it. Q waved him in and told himself in a very firm and resolute manner that he was not blushing. At all. 

“Good evening, Q,” Bond said. 

“Good evening, 007. You’re here for your kit, I presume,” Q said, and his voice was perfectly calm. 

Bond nodded and took a seat on the chair in front of Q’s desk. Q picked up a case and opened it, carefully taking out Bond’s gun, the mini radio, and several other items. 

“You’re familiar with these, I trust,” he said, indicating the gun and the radio, “and also this, of course,” he added, referring to the Hello Kitty USB drive. 

“Oh, there he is,” Bond smiled, delighted. 

“He?” 

“Yes. Quatzecoatl.” 

“I’m sorry?” Q asked, mystified. He had absolutely no idea what Bond was on about. 

“I have quite missed him,” Bond told him and reached out to pick up the USB drive from the desk. It was honestly embarrassing that it took until that moment for Q to realise that yes, Bond meant the Hello Kitty Q had designed for him and yes, he had actually named it. 

“Quatzecoatl?” Q repeated incredulously. It did not escape his notice that the name was that of an Aztec god. Or that it started with the letter Q, though he was under no misconception as to the choice of the letter holding any particular meaning for Bond. No, it was probably just an interesting and exotic name for him that just happened to start with a Q, nothing more. 

“Yes. I think it suits him, don’t you?” Bond said. 

“Um. I… suppose?”

“He reminds me of you,” Bond added. “My helpful travel-sized Q.”

Q tried his very best to remain unaffected and perfectly professional. (Whether he managed it was anyone’s guess, but at least Bond had no more comments to offer, and therefore Q chose to take it as a win. After all, with an agent like 007 to look after, one learns to pick one’s battles.) Despite his best efforts, however, Q could feel his cheeks burning. Hoping that Bond wouldn’t notice was futile, what with him sitting right _ there _, but he could always hope for the agent to be kind enough to ignore it. 

“And what else do you have for me?” Bond asked, perhaps taking pity on Q. 

Q blinked and then deliberately made himself focus on the rest of the kit. He presented Bond with the handy key card he’d made for him, the sticker with its helpful words on full display. “This will assist you with any breaking and entering you may need to do.” 

Bond eyed the card with a hint of a raised eyebrow, read the words and accepted it, with a smile Q found especially hard to read. To an untrained eye it looked like amusement, mixed with something suspiciously like affection. But surely that was just Q seeing things that he wanted to see, was it not? 

“Thank you, Q, this is most helpful.” 

“And then there’s this,” Q continued, offering Bond the last piece of his kit. 

Bond blinked first at the slim, sleek case, then up at Q who couldn’t help a smile at his reaction. 

“I already have a phone,” he said. Q huffed out a laugh.

“That’s not a phone, Bond!” he announced proudly. “007, meet Sofi, The Safe-Opening Foolproof Instrument. See, you only need to press this one b-”

“I know how to crack a safe, Q!” Bond interrupted him, sounding almost indignant. Q looked up in surprise.

“Well, er… Of course you can, Bond!”

“I’ve been breaking into safes since-”

“I am sure you have!” This time it was Q who did the interrupting. Ha, see how he liked it! 

“I know you can crack any safe in your sleep, Bond,” he continued to soothe the agent. “But this White Cross League are dangerous people, who, if the reports of their resources are correct, can afford to have the latest cutting-edge of security measures! Not to mention that you cannot afford to take half an hour poking at the thing with your lock-picking tools, Bond! There’s always someone in that study, and we need those blueprints! Without proof that there is a bomb, the Interpol won’t lift a finger.”

Still, Bond looked far from happy to have his skills as an agent doubted (but honestly what did he expect after the affair with the Qua- the Hello Kitty USB drive?!); either way, he had stopped trying to protest.

“So what does this Sofi of yours do?” Bond asked and Q couldn’t help but beam at him, because he might have tried to hide it, but Q could tell that he did like it.

“Well, it is rather nifty, if I say so myself.”

“Oh, is it?” Huh, when exactly had Bond moved closer? Because Q was sure that the last time he’d looked, the agent’s eyes didn’t seem quite so … blue, nor the pupils so large.

“Yes!” Q answered without being the least bit flustered. 

Well, perhaps Q might have sounded calmer in his response. He was beginning to think that the key was simply not to look at Bond when dealing with him, because everytime he did he ended up blushing like a schoolboy.

“See here, 007,” he directed Bond’s gaze while keeping his eyes averted. “This round button at the bottom of the screen? Just press Sofi to the locking mechanism, and push it. It will vibrate, so please, for the love of God, don’t drop it!”

“Come now, Q!” Again with the reproachful voice! However, Q was certain that this time Bond was only teasing. But he refused to look up and check, he simply went on:

“Now, this is very much a prototype, Bond, _ however _, the code should appear on the screen in no more than three minutes.”

“Three minutes?” There was a tone of honest appreciation in Bond’s voice, and something warm and dark, and Q wondered if this was maybe the way Bond would sound if Q were to-

“Ah- yes! It was almost laughably simple, in the end,” Q babbled, because apparently not looking Bond in the eyes didn’t make him immune after all. “You see when bats use echolocation-”

“Q, you really are the smartest witch of your age!” Q whipped his head up to stare at Bond so fast his neck cracked .

But there was no sign that Bond was mocking him, and fuck! Why was he smiling like that with his eyes all...?!

“You know Harry Potter?” flew out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Bond scoffed.

“Contrary to popular belief I do not spend all my downtime at the bottom of a Macallan, Q.”

“Oh,” was Q’s articulate answer. Because Bond liked to read. And he probably wore reading glasses while he did it. Reading glasses that someone could maybe steal from him and run away with them to the bedroom, and-

“Well then, I believe this covers it all,” Q said in his most professional manner. “Please try and bring back whatever you can. A full kit would be a wonderful surprise, but I‘ll make do with what I can get.” 

Bond nodded, a solemn expression on his face. “Understood, Quartermaster.” 

“Oh! Your ticket and passport, printed and ready,” Q suddenly remembered, and reached for the waiting envelope on the corner of his desk. He offered it to Bond, who accepted it with a thanks and a tiny noise at the back of his throat that Q thought best to ignore. He’d normally send them to an agent’s mobile, but given Bond’s disdain for his smart phone - not to mention the debacle of their last meeting and _ Bond not knowing how to use his own bloody printer _ \- he’d opted to print them out instead. Just to save both his and Bond’s nerves, and to be a helpful Quartermaster, naturally. 

“I shall be in your ear once you’ve landed in Brussels,” Q told Bond, suddenly feeling somewhat unsure of the situation and doing his best to cover it by going back to the basics, as it were. 

“And I shall be looking forward to that,” Bond replied with a wink – a wink! He’d never done that before, of that Q was certain! – before gathering his kit and standing up. “Until tomorrow, then, Quartermaster,” he said, and then left Q’s office. 

Q left soon after Bond, and he did spend the rest of the evening with Sekhmet and Uzume, sharing bits of his takeaway and adding some actual cat treats for the kitties, followed by an early night and a bit of a lie in before Q found himself in his office again. 

He’d given his staff their instructions concerning preparing for Bond’s mission, and had retreated into his office to ostensibly finish a particular project of his – yes, it was another of the gadgets he’d been making for Bond lately, why’d you ask? – but what he found himself doing instead was some mild fretting and checking the CCTV at Heathrow to make sure that Bond had managed to get through security and finish his check-in well in time for his flight. (With the help of a young, pretty woman at the counter, but then Q had expected nothing less, and what was a bit of flirting in the life of a double-oh, anyway?) 

That confirmed, Q turned his attention back to where it belonged. And his gaze did not linger on Bond’s finest features, certainly not. (He did leave the feed open on his computer though, minimized on the corner of the screen, just in case.) He went back to tinkering with the as-of-yet-nameless gadget and absent-mindedly thinking about whether he felt like a bit of lunch. It would still take Bond a couple of hours to reach Brussels, so he had the time for it, even if the will was as yet undecided. 

It turned out that he didn’t need to make up his mind, for lunch was provided by an anonymous donation from a restaurant he liked straight to his desk – although Q had more than an inkling about the person behind it, rendering the anonymous part more or less moot. 

Moneypenny, however, merely smiled enigmatically when he stopped by to thank her. Strange, that, but Q had little energy to dedicate to pondering over it, as duty called and a glance at his watch told him that Bond’s flight would be arriving in less than ten minutes. 

Back at his branch, Q took over the comms and started going through the new relevant data gathered by his staff while he’d been otherwise occupied. There was something that didn’t seem to quite add up to the rest of the information in there, something that, while relatively minor, rubbed Q the wrong way, so he decided to investigate further. Part of his attention was, as always, focused on Bond; easily spotting the blond hair and the presence of an agent amongst the general populace, Q kept track on Bond’s progress through customs and the rest of the airport. 

There was a moment where Bond stopped by a shop on his way to the exit as though considering entering it, which made Q blink curiously. He didn’t, in the end, but continued on after a minute or two. Q wasn’t going to ask about it, but he couldn’t help wondering if Bond had a lady friend somewhere in Brussels, as the window of the shop displayed a rather nice selection of flowers and jewellery. 

Something on his screen pinged, and Q turned his full attention towards it. He was so focused on reading the words before him that he completely missed the moment when Bond exited the airport. 

The sudden, “Q? I’m outside of the airport, heading towards the car,” in his ear managed to startle him enough that there was no way to cover his small involuntary intake of breath. 

“Yes, Q here,” he said, hoping that Bond had not caught his momentary lapse in focus. 

“Did I surprise you?” Bond asked, sounding amused, and thus dashing Q’s hopes. “I thought that you’d be following me through the security cameras ever since I stepped out of the plane.” 

“I was,” Q admitted, “but I got distracted. Now, before you say anything, I need you to listen to me very carefully, 007.” 

“I’m listening.” 

“There is something that just doesn’t add up in the data we’ve gathered. I’m looking into it as we speak, and while we should continue as planned for now, you might want to get ready for some improvisation.” 

“I’m always ready for that.” 

Q snorted softly. “I am aware.” 

Bond’s chuckle in his ear was low and intimate, and Q couldn’t stop himself from shivering. He just hoped that no one else had taken any notice of it. 

“I’m in the car,” Bond said next. “I’ll be following the agreed upon route for now, but if it needs to change…”

“I shall let you know immediately, 007, yes.” 

Bond said nothing after that, just started the car (a sleek, white-grey, mid-range sports car Q had not chosen because of the way it complimented Bond’s own colours, certainly not) and left the airport. Q, for his part, kept combing through the data to verify what he was starting to fear was going on. 

It just wasn’t possible! Their contact had been certain it would be two months at least before – What were the odds that the League-?! Oh shit!

“007?” he said after a few minutes of silence. 

“Yes, Q?” Bond sounded alert and attentive. 

“Your new destination is The European Parliament Hemicycle. We have reasons to believe that the bomb has been transferred there. I’ve informed Interpol, and R is in communication with the local police force, so you should be able to get it with no problems.”

“Understood.” 

Q watched as Bond got the car turned around and followed his GPS to the new destination Q had programmed. While Bond drove, Q studied the blueprints of the building, trying to pinpoint the most obvious location for the bomb to be hidden. It would need to be a place that would allow the biggest blast radius and body count, so clearly the out-facing parts of the building were out of the question. If I was a crazed white supremacist intent on causing as much harm as possible, Q thought, where would I hide the bomb? 

By the time Bond had reached his destination and was making his way inside, Q had also reached a conclusion. His instructions led Bond to a room close to the very heart of the building, which was miraculously empty of people and also contained the bomb that they had been searching for. 

However, the security cameras in the building left something to be desired, as Q soon found out. 

“007? Do you see the bomb?” 

“I see it.” 

“Can you describe it to me? I'm afraid the placement of the camera in the room is less than ideal, and I cannot currently get a close enough look at it to be of much help.” 

Q waited for a moment, but Bond remained quiet. 

“007? What’s the countdown?” 

Still nothing from Bond, and Q was starting to get nervous. “007! Sitrep!” 

“It’s fifteen minutes and rapidly coming down,” Bond finally deigned to reply, and Q frowned as he watched the agent move so that he was no longer able to see more than a corner of the bomb.

“007? What are you doing?” 

“A little busy here, Q.” 

“Should I evacuate the building?” Q asked, then continued with, “What am I saying, of course I should evacuate the building. R! Get me the security!” And he continued to coordinate the evacuation, remaining as a link between the security and the police, all the while keeping a close eye on both the clock and his agent. He was unable to see much, but he did hear the clicking of keys – what was Bond _ doing _ with a computer? – as well as some choice words muttered by his very own menace of an agent. He tried to ask for clarification from Bond once, but gave up when his words went largely ignored again. 

After nine and a half minutes, when Q had made sure that most of the building was empty, he cleared his throat and spoke again. “007? The evacuation is nearly completed. Perhaps it’s time for you to leave as well?” 

“Leave? When I’ve just disabled the bomb?” 

“You did what, exactly?” 

“I disabled the bomb,” Bond repeated, sounding smug. “Look, no gloomy red numbers anymore.” He stepped away from the bomb, giving Q a slightly better view of the situation at hand. Q now saw that the bomb was in fact linked to a computer and that it appeared completely dormant, like a sleeping tiger, still dangerous but tamed for the time being. 

“How did you manage that?” Q asked, perfectly reasonably. 

“Oh, I hacked it,” Bond told him, happy as you please. 

“You _ hacked _ it?” Try as he might, Q was unable to stop his voice from rising an octave. “But you don't _ know _ how to hack!” 

“Now Q, I’ve never claimed that.” 

“But… you didn’t know how to use the USB drive… or your phone!” 

Bond looked the tiniest bit awkward at the mention of those incidents. “I, er… I might not have been entirely honest with you.” 

“Bond! Did you just admit to lying to me? No, don’t answer that, I don’t have enough time to deal with you right now.” Q took a deep breath and counted to five in his mind – he’d have done ten or even twenty, but he hadn’t been lying about not having enough time – and continued with, ”The police and the bomb squad are on their way, 007. You are to remain where you are and make sure that the threat is properly eliminated.”

“Understood, Q.” 

Q said nothing more after that. Instead, he kept watch and made sure that the bomb was safely removed from the premises. It was only after Bond had given him the all clear that he spoke again, telling Bond that he, too, was allowed to leave the building. 

For once, Bond followed Q’s instructions. “I’m outside,” he told Q soon after, sounding far more cheerful than Q felt he was allowed. “What are my next orders?” 

“To return home. Interpol will deal with the White Cross League, now that we’ve proof of their aims.” 

“With pleasure.” 

“When you’re back in London, we’re going to have words, 007,” Q said firmly.

“I’m looking forward to that, my dear Quartermaster,” Bond all but purred in return, and Q could clearly see the grin on the man’s lips and the sparkle of humour in his blue eyes. 

“You are impossible,” he stated to no one in particular. 

“But that’s why you love me, right?” Bond said, and Q really had nothing to say to that, no clever remark to salvage the conversation, and therein lay his problem. Because Bond was not wrong, and he had no _ right _not to be wrong like that! 

So Q said nothing about it, just ignored it like a proper Quartermaster of MI6 should.

“Your flight leaves in an hour, 007, please try your best not to miss it. Your ticket will be sent to your mobile in a few minutes,” and here he paused meaningfully, “and I will be on standby should you encounter any more problems. Q out.” 

And he muted the comms link on his end, but kept his headset on as promised while dealing with the plane ticket and sending it to Bond’s smartphone. He looked at the cameras long enough to ascertain that Bond had got the link opened, then resolutely turned his attention away from the man and onto his branch. 

Q absolutely refused to meet R’s gaze, afraid to see amusement there, and did his best to avoid the eyes of the rest of his staff, too. Instead, he started to write a report to M while listening to Bond whistle, of all things, in his ear whilst driving quite sedately back towards the airport. Q was honestly a little bit amazed that 007 was doing as he was told, with no detours to stop by any potential lady friends on his way. 

Q stayed on the comms until Bond informed him that he had arrived and gotten through security – Q had done the check-in for him, to speed things along – and was about to disconnect his earpiece. Only then did Q do the same, and afterwards he signed his report and sent it off to M. 

That left Q with nothing pressing to do, and for a moment he found himself floundering. It only lasted a few seconds, before Q made up his mind. He’d go to the shooting range to work off a bit of extra energy, and perhaps some of that feeling of betrayal Bond’s confession had caused in him. 

It wasn’t a nice feeling, realising that the man he’d daydreamed about hadn’t thought him important enough to tell him the truth and had, in fact, actively encouraged Q’s rather misguided efforts of helping him understand the technology he was to be using as an agent of the Crown. 

And the pamphlets! Q barely managed to disguise his groan of embarrassment under a lousy excuse of a cough. What Bond must have thought about him while reading those! Or perhaps he’d never even read them, just glanced at them, laughed his pretty head off and thrown them into the recycling bin. 

Q was lucky that he’d never written his own name – or letter, rather, but he digressed – on them, on the off chance that someone who was not Bond would happen to find them. God knows how he would explain that to the other double-ohs!

While Q talked to R and made sure that everyone else knew what they should do while he was away, he tried his best to push such thoughts away. He managed it, barely. Still, eventually he did find himself at the shooting range, relieved to realise that he was the only person there, ready to begin. He took aim and shot at the target, valiantly trying to think about anything but Bond. 

He wasn't sure how well he managed it, but at least his aim had never been quite as true. The many holes in the centre of the target were proof enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! There you go: the big reveal is over and done with! 
> 
> Were you on the edge of you seats? Are you shaking your fist at Bond? Do you perhaps, even now, have more questions than answers? 
> 
> Well, you are welcome, nay! encouraged! to come shout at us in the comments below. 
> 
> **Also, the epilogue with the final explanations and resolution shall come to your phone/tablet/laptop screens on _Wednesday_!**


	7. Chapter 7

Later that evening, Q found himself back in his office, pretending to work while simultaneously pretending  _ not  _ to keep an eye on the clock. He wasn’t exactly waiting for Bond to make an appearance – except that he really was and was fooling exactly no one, himself most definitely included – but he wasn’t in a hurry to go home, either, citing an unfinished project as his reason should anyone be bold enough to ask. 

No one was, of course, but that was neither here nor there. 

So when the knock on his door came, Q’s short and precise, “Come in,” was followed by an awkward sort of silence, what with Q refusing to look up from his computer even when he could clearly hear Bond sitting down on the same chair he’d occupied not 24 hours earlier. He kept Bond waiting for exactly three minutes and sixteen seconds before finally, slowly and steadily, raising his head and looking in the general direction of the man. 

“007. Back already, I see. You’ve been to see M, I trust?” 

“I have, yes.” 

“Your kit?”

“Here.” 

Q took the offered case and opened it, noticing how everything inside was in perfect condition. Well, it ought to be, he thought; Bond hadn’t needed to actually use any of the gadgets Q had spent hours crafting for him, after all. 

“A fully intact kit, 007? Well done.” 

“Q…”

Q ignored Bond completely, and instead closed the case and moved it aside. “I have already written and submitted my report to M. If you haven’t done the same, I would suggest you do it sooner rather than later.” 

“I wrote most of it during the flight,” Bond said. “And I’ll finish the rest by tomorrow.”

“That would be nice of you, 007. Now, I believe we’re finished for the evening. I shall see you again before your next assignment.” The dismissal was left unsaid but not unexpressed, as Q had decided that despite what he had told Bond earlier, words were not something the two of them should be having. No, the best course of action would be for them both to forget all that had happened and go back to a polite working relationship. 

He could do it. He could, honest. He just wished that Bond would let him. 

Bond, however, didn’t seem to be getting the hint. “Q?” he said, and why did he have to sound like  _ that _ ? Like he was somehow hurt by Q keeping his distance? It was not fair at all. 

“007?”

“Can we at least talk about it? Please?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Q stood up and headed towards the door, expecting Bond to follow him. “It would be best for everyone if we simply forgot anything that might have happened and focused on work, instead.” He went to open the door for Bond, but he had barely gotten it ajar before there was a hand next to his pushing it closed again. 

Startled, Q turned around, only to come face to face with Bond. Bond, who was suddenly all too close, and Q’s unintentional step backwards brought his back against the closed door, which wasn’t any better. 

“Bond! What are you doing?” he asked, trying his best to sound like the calm and reasonable Quartermaster that he wanted to be.

“I’m trying to apologise.” 

“You have a funny way of doing it, then.” 

“Q. Look at me, please?” Bond asked, and the way he said it, Q had no other choice than to finally look up into the man’s beautiful blue eyes. 

“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Q,” Bond said, and he sounded suspiciously sincere. “That was never my intention.”

“Then why did you do it?” Q asked, the ‘it’ containing everything from the first incident of the lost internet to all that had happened after. 

“Because I’m a fool!” Bond blurted out. By the way his jaw snapped shut again, Q suspected that this confession was involuntary. 

Q just raised an eyebrow at him in a ‘go on’ sort of gesture. Bond took a deep breath and visibly steeled himself. 

“That day in the gallery, when we first met… you practically called me a dinosaur. I’m a proud man, Q, and being called old and obsolete by this beautiful, bright young thing… it was galling. With that, then everything else that happened afterwards, my pride was hurt.” 

Q would admit to feeling just a little bit contrite about that.

“The first time, with the internet… I just wanted to poke back at you. You had caught my attention back at the gallery, and I wanted to get back at you, maybe test you a bit, too. I thought the question would annoy you, but I genuinely didn’t think that you’d take it seriously. Only you  _ did _ take it seriously, and you were  _ helpful _ , even though I could tell that you hated every second of it. I couldn’t quite believe that you were so ready to accept that I couldn’t access bloody Internet Explorer. I know you hadn’t seen much of me on missions, but who was it that helped you with Silva’s passkey?” 

Now it was Bond’s turn to raise an eyebrow, and Q’s turn to grimace as he remembered that. It had completely escaped his memory in the adrenaline rush that followed with directing Bond through the Tube. 

“It was obvious you weren’t just playing along, no one looks that pained if they’re in on the joke. So I did it again, just to see. Surely you couldn’t have thought I was so technologically inept and still made it this far as a double-oh? Christ, Q, I know for a fact that the old M put a note in my file after that time I hacked into her laptop!”

She had? If only Q had actually had the time to sit and go through his agents’ files the way he had intended to, he wouldn’t have wasted so much time making stupid pamphlets that, he was now certain, had made Bond even more annoyed. 

“In my defence, Bond, I haven’t exactly had a quiet five minutes to go through your files myself. I asked Tanner and Moneypenny for the Cliff’s Notes version, and neither of them saw fit to mention your skills with computers. Clearly, I need to go through everything myself in future.”

“Perhaps it would avoid this sort of thing happening again, yes. But you needn’t worry about me trying to pull the wool over your eyes again. I did it the second time because I was sure you’d realise I was having you on. Except you didn’t. Again, you actually  _ helped. _ I couldn’t decide if it was because you just didn’t realise what the requirements for becoming a field agent  _ are _ , or if it was just because it was me and you still thought I deserved to be put out to pasture. I did think that you still thought that I was past my expiration date, and therefore useless.”

Oh God, Bond thought Q hated him. Bond thought Q hated him, and Q wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole now, please. This was a disaster. 

“I realised soon enough that if you really had taken against me, I would know about it. I’ve heard from the other double-ohs what you’re like when people don’t follow instructions or do stupid things, and you weren’t like that with me. If you really didn’t like me, you wouldn’t have been so… kind about it. After that mission, I stopped trying to trick you. I wanted to make you see that I wasn’t really an idiot. I figured if I had managed to get even a little bit of your affection, I wanted to keep it.”

Wait, what? Q’s brain skipped like a record back over that last bit. Had Bond figured out how Q was feeling? Possibly even before Q had figured it out himself. Shit. 

“I had intended to come clean after the USB situation, but then I got sick and that bloody medicine made me sleepwalk. I genuinely didn’t put the tablet in the microwave on purpose. I think I was dreaming that I was putting it in the safe, but I must have tried to enter the combination on the microwave controls and it locked me out. My brain was so fuzzy between the medication and the flu, that I couldn’t even begin to think of how to fix it. I figured that since you already thought I was stupid, it wouldn’t hurt to call you. Then you turned up and you had made those pamphlets. You did think I was stupid, but you were trying to help. When I was finally lucid enough to read them, I thought that might be the most ridiculously sweet thing anyone had done for me in a long time.”

Q flushed. If there was a mirror nearby, he knew that his cheeks would be the colour of beetroot.

“I had it all planned out. I was going to cook you dinner, hopefully give us both the chance to get to know each other better outside of work, and apologize for the whole microwave thing… but then the hob. That hob is evil, Q.” Bond nodded seriously, as if to give his comment more gravitas. 

Despite himself, Q giggled. 

“Still, we had a good night, didn’t we?” 

Q nodded, grudgingly. It  _ had _ been a lovely evening, aside from the hob incident and Uzume attacking Bond. 

“I thought I had managed to change your mind about me, see that I wasn’t a total waste of space. So I came down to your branch intending to ask you to dinner, but then you just assumed I needed your help again, and I chickened out. I was sure that you still saw me as an idiot, and I was embarrassed. The email thing was all I could think of on the spot to cover up my original intention.

“I never intended to hurt you, Q. Yes, I admit it started off as a way to get back at you for hurting my pride, but then I wanted to get your attention. Once I had it, I wanted to keep it, and I didn’t want you to think poorly of me, but I couldn’t find a good way to come clean. With that bomb, there was no time to explain that I didn’t really need your help. I didn’t want you to find out like that. I’m sorry that you thought I was playing a game with you, it was never meant to go that far.”

Q looked at Bond, who had gotten ever so close during his last little speech, and swallowed. 

“All right,” he said, softer and quieter than he’d meant. “You’re forgiven.” Because what else could he say when Bond was looking at him with those bright blue eyes of his? “Just… don’t do it again?” 

“Promise,” Bond said, voice equally soft, and kept looking at him. Q felt trapped there, between Bond and the door, but not in an uncomfortable way. No, it was more like in that daydream of his… and that, he felt, was his cue to get the hell out of the situation before he embarrassed himself further. 

“Um… Bond? Could you, um… that is to say, it’s getting late and, um…” Q babbled, and he could feel himself flushing at Bond’s proximity. 

Bond, the bastard, just smiled. And then he was... his hand was cupping Q’s cheek, and was he about to- wait, was Bond… kissing him? 

Q gasped into what was most definitely a kiss, and could feel the tip of Bond’s tongue touch his lower lip. For a moment he was frozen, but when Bond kept kissing him, running his thumb down Q’s cheek, Q finally unfroze enough to kiss him back. 

The kiss went on long enough for Q to have time to realise that it was true, that Bond was kissing him out of his own free will, and that it wasn’t a dream. Never in a million years could he have dreamed the way Bond’s mouth felt against his own, the way he tasted...

“Come to dinner with me,” Bond murmured against his lips. 

“Hmm,” Q hummed his agreement.

“There’s a … Jesus fuck, Q!” Q had moved his attention to Bond’s jawline, to that delightful place where the scent of Bond’s aftershave still lingered, to allow him room to speak. (Because Q was helpful like that!)

“There’s a new… a new restaurant… just opened…” Bond got out haltingly, voice strained, and Q couldn’t help but turn his head and catch Bond’s mouth again and kiss him hard. Because he could. He was allowed to do that now: kiss Bond and nibble on his lower lip and taste his sighs and ask for more and- Huh...

“Just opened?” Q pulled away just enough to be able to meet Bond’s eyes without squinting. “You mean the opening you went to two weeks ago, at  _ Al Ponte Vecchio _ ?”

Now, Q couldn’t be absolutely sure from this close, but he could almost swear that Bond’s cheeks gained a slight rosy tint. 

“Are you-? Why are you blush-? James!” Q could feel a giggle build in his chest, and simply had to kiss that sweet man again to stop it from escaping. “Did you go all alone to the opening to- what? Get the lay of the land?” 

“Well, I wasn’t about to lead my Quartermaster somewhere without checking out the staff and security exits, was I?” Bond blustered. “And anyway, your file did mention an Italian connection on your mother’s side but how was I supposed to know if the food- Wait a minute! How did you-? Have you been following me, Q?” 

Q didn’t blush. He certainly wasn’t hiding his face in the crook of Bond’s neck because he didn’t want him to see the great big splotches of red on his cheeks. 

“Q?” Bond’s amused voice rumbled through Q’s chest all the way down to his toes. He fought a shiver and lost when a large gentle hand cupped the back of his head and began to play with the longer strands there.

“You were still recuperating. There might have been... hostiles,” he mumbled into Bond’s shirt. “The cab driver was very suspicious! And it’s my job as your Quartermaster to- ”

“The cab driver was at least seventy, darling. I hope you don’t think I’m so decrepit that-”

“I don’t think you’re old at all!” Q rushed to get out, and pulled away to look into Bond’s eyes again, because Bond needed to know that he was being serious about this. Bond was the most gorgeous man he’d ever met and he couldn’t be allowed to think otherwise, and – Wait!

“An...  _ Italian _ connection-?! James, did you… did you  _ hack _ my personnel file?”

“I’ve just hacked a ticking bomb, darling,” Bond said with a smug grin on his lips that Q simply had to kiss away. “The encryption on your file was a piece of cake.” 

“A piece of-?! That was  _ my _ code and it’s bloody brilliant!” Q squawked indignantly.

“Well, it wasn’t  _ bad _ , but I can give you a few pointers on where to improve.” There was laughter in his voice, and his eyes were- and what did Bond think he was doing, cupping Q’s cheek like that and thinking he could just peck him on the corner of his mouth?!

“I’ll give you pointers,” he muttered darkly before he turned his head to intercept the kiss. Because Bond might be talking about hacking through Q’s best coding as though it were nothing (Bond would later admit that it had taken a chocolate bribe to R to get him started, and three weeks of doing little else on leave), but Q’d be damned if he let the man kiss him like a chaste Victorian heroine five minutes into their relationship.

Q licked into Bond’s mouth, hummed in response to the hungry sound Bond made, and tried not to focus on how much trouble he was in now. He’d struggled not to jump Bond when he’d thought the man was completely technologically incompetent. He wasn’t sure he could survive a Bond who could actually keep up with him.

-THE END-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you had as much reading this as we had writing it. If you did, leave us a comment? If you didn't, tell us what we could have done differently. :) 
> 
> Also, we've got another collab in the works! Another 00Q, post-Skyfall! Here's the links to our Tumblrs ([Christine](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/), [Souffle](https://soufflegirl91.tumblr.com/), [Celyan](https://melynen.tumblr.com/)) for updates, or if you want to check out [ the "art" for Dizzyingly Digital ](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/tagged/dizzyingly%20digital)I inexpertly created. 
> 
> In the meantime, you're welcome to browse our profiles for more Bondfic, or check out another of our collabs: [Lost in Transportation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21917353)


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